Three Little Quilts

It was a cold and rainy week this week in the Salt Lake Valley. On Thursday night/Friday morning we had our first hard frost. That means we’ll be spending some time outdoors this weekend pulling up the last of the garden vegetation, bringing in all the flower pots and yard decorations and storing the patio furniture in the sheds until next spring. Oh, and I’ve got some daffodil bulbs to plant. But those are all pleasant chores and the sun is shining today, so I’m looking forward to getting to it!

Our new washer and dryer were delivered on Thursday. The process of clearing a path through my studio to the laundry room was simple. The removal of the old behemoths (and me sneaking in to clean the dusty floors and walls) plus them bringing in the new machines and setting them up was painless. The only down side to the new machines is that the dryer doesn’t have a light in it. But the room is well-lit so it’s all good. Surprisingly (to me anyway) is that there are only generic Owner Manuals for these machines, no user instructions. Granted, after 50 years of doing laundry it’s pretty intuitive. But I found it odd that the manuals didn’t have specific operating panel pictures or instructions. And the LG website claims there IS no user manual for our models. Oh well. I figured it out. The washer has a huge capacity - two loads for what would have formerly been three loads. 

This is my prehistoric laundry room, stripped down to nothing. The old machines are on the left and the new ones on the right. See how much better the new ones fit?!? There is actually room to move in there! The laundry room will get its facelift this winter. It’s the only room in this house that has never had a redo,  except we had the drain changed from a french drain to an actual connected-to-the-water-line drain. And floor tiles were added in 2010-ish to replace the linoleum. 

There are myriad holes in the walls behind the machines, none of which are visible in these pictures. They’ll need to be patched. Then we’ll add cabinetry and/or storage and then paint and decorate. I’m thinking it’ll be sometime in early 2022, after the Holidays. I’m collecting ideas on Pinterest now.

There was a lot of time to sew this week given the inclement weather. First I focused on my lime and light green strings and managed to get 18 blocks made. They look funky and stiff in the picture below because they still have the foundation papers on the back. I’ll remove the papers (and talk on the phone!) when Bruce has his annual wellness doctor visit this week and I’m stuck waiting in the car.

And then I tackled the green scrap crumbs and made seven blocks. Both these and the string blocks will finish at 6”, which is my go-to size for these filler blocks for quilts. 

I’m sharing these blocks at Scrappy Saturday. I love participating in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge and will begin finishing up this year’s rainbow quilts beginning next month.  But this week I was mostly on a small scrappy quilt finishing mission, and I have three little quilts to show you. They’ll all be headed to Quilts for Kids.

This is the lime green Soccer quilt. It measures 39.5” x 47.5”. The quilting is a large stipple with variegated green thread.  It was put together from bright green and black/white almost-WOF (width of fabric) strips donated to Quilts for Kids. I had to use some green strips to make it wider along the sides.

The backing is this familiar newspaper print that I’d like to get used up. It has a greenish tinge to it, so it was perfect. 

Next in finishing (but sewn before the green) are these two quilts from Under The Sea  themed scraps. The line on this first one was “Here Fishy Fish” by Heather Mulder Petersen. 

There were a lot of chunks and pieces from this line and another similar line of fabric, so I used it on the back, too. 

This quilt “Fishy Fishy 1” (so NOT original, I know, but who really needs to name donation quilts?) was quilted in swirls and hooks to mimic water and waves. Sort of. I guess. Whatever - it was fun! It measures 40.5 x 47.5”.

The third and final quilt was “Fishy Fishy 2”, because there were still a lot of scraps in this theme and colorrway to use. You can see some of the same fabrics but with the navy added.

The backing was this blue I had left over from the yardage I bought for my Positivity quilt backing (to be revealed before month end). 

I quilted it with stringy loops. It finished at 41.5x45”. 

These three quilts will be added to the pile and delivered to QFK next Saturday. That’s the day that I’ll be teaching the scrap workshop (the Zipper Quilt) at Quilter’s Lodge in Draper. 

One final thing before I sign off. I’ll be back on Wednesday with a special blog post. Let’s just say there will be a quilt finish (or two) to share and a giveaway! See you back here then! 

Scraps in the LImelight

October’s color for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge is lime or light green. We did the darker half of the green spectrum earlier in the year. In between all my catch-up sewing from the last couple months plus some secret sewing to be revealed later this month, I did whip out my bucket of green scraps and sort through those I wanted to take aim at this month. But before I get to that, let me  show you the one finish I had this week.

As I said, I’m trying to play catch-up, since the studio remodel put me way behind on finishing quilts for Quilts for Kids. This is the second of the two orange scrappy quilt whose tops I sewed in September when we were focusing on orange. I showed the orange string quilt (Orangesicle Strings) last week. This orange quilt is a hodgepodge of orange blocks, parts, squares, strips and crumbs that I quilted up this week.

It measures  40.5 x 48.5” and is quilted in a loopy design. The binding is folded over from the back and machine sewn, just as our chapter of QFK prefers. I used up a couple of old orange chunks for the back. I wanted to get a picture of it outdoors with the changing leaves, but it’s been rainy and dark the last couple days. Oh well. 

In green news, I finished 12 framed four-patch blocks. My only plan for these is just to sew them up and wait for a use to come along. At 8.5” each unfinished, they’ll be a useful size to insert into hodgepodge quilt as fillers.

Yep, some dark green snuck in there, but in the overall scheme of things it doesn’t really matter. The scraps are the boss, you know. 

And here is the current quilt-in-process on the design board. Perfect for lime green month! I have the length about right, but will have to add something to the sides to bolster up the width.

It’s partially sewn and partially pinned. And I do intend to match the seam in that horizontal chevron strip.  But my first step is always just to arrange these strips and off-cuts that I get donated to see if they are cohesive enough in color and theme to cover enough area for a quilt top. 

The goal is to get this one to the finish line this week, along with two other fish-themed tops that are ready to be pin basted. Those three quilts will bring me current with QFK finishes as far as RSC colors go. Speaking of the RSC, come check out Scrappy Saturday! 

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This week I cobbled together this little arrangement of flowers and other bits of interest from the last gasps of our garden this season. Besides roses, delphinium and zinnias, I added pods from our trumpet vine and fronds (small branches) from our dwarf Japanese maple. 

Our rains are forecast to stop about mid-week, so I hope to get my bulbs planted and bring in any last tomatoes before the first frost hits. Also, I saw a flower at the garden center that I am coveting - an echibeckia. It’s a cross between a coneflower (echinacea) and a Black-eyed Susan (rudbeckia). They were actually developed in 2015, and there are several varieties to chose from. But this is the first time I’ve seen (or at least noticed) one locally. Does it say “autumn” or what?!?

Photo Credit: Perennials.com

Oh, and did I tell you?!? My washing machine has been giving me trouble for a few weeks now and is getting wonkier by the week. The programming is screwy. Sometimes when I push a button to do X, it will say Y. That is, if it will even acknowledge me. I would love to go back to simpler technology. At any rate, we did our research and bought a new washer and dryer that will be delivered next Thursday. They will remove and haul away these old monster front-loaders on pedestals and install our new dryer and top-loading washer. The only catch is that I have to clear a path to the laundry room from the back basement door. That means moving 2 sewing tables and 2 plastic storage drawer units. *Sigh* 

Have a great week!

Wishing Every Month Was October

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” – Albert Camus

OK, raise your hand if you love October. !!!!! 

That’s what I thought. We *all* love it. (Even those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, where October is spring). But for my purposes today, I’m talking about October autumns, and here in Northern Utah they are beautiful. Clear, blue skies, leaves changing colors, perfect days and cool, crisp evenings. Harvesting the veggies, planting bulbs and buttoning up the garden. Changing the summer wardrobe out for warmer, more snuggly clothes. The first pumpkin spice latte, hot chocolate and soup of the season. Even the cats have begun sleeping in their cozy beds! 

And this year it’s even nicer because we are happy, healthy and have so much to be grateful for. Where do I start?

Our grandson Easton graduated from naval Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Newport, Rhode  Island on Thursday. We were able to attend virtually and watch him become a fully-commissioned Ensign in the US Navy.

From here he’ll return home to Utah for a couple weeks before heading off to Charleston, South Carolina for Nuclear Engineering (submarine) school. Easton, we are so proud of you and just love you to bits! 

Some of my favorite memories of Easton include seeing him in a Jedi costume I made for him here and watching as he and his sisters made “snowmen” here (he was so little!). We wish you fair winds and a following sea. 

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My studio remodel is finished! There may be a few tweaks here and there, but I finally feel as though there is a place for everything and everything is in its place. I changed my mind about some things and had to adapt in other areas, but overall I’m very pleased. 

For those of you who may not know, we had two floods this summer. The first was in July when water came in along a foundation wall after a thunderstorm from Hell. Water leaked in through a hairline crack between the foundation and outer brickwork (building codes in 1963 weren’t what they are today). The issue was addressed and fixed and should be good for another 100 years or more, LOL. But we had to tear out a wall in my studio and pull back our new carpeting to dry it out. Then another storm hit us in August. An exterior drain (that we were keeping an eye on) clogged up and water seeped into the basement again in my studio. Luckily, we caught the flooding in the early stages. We moved everything out of the room, fixed the drain, sandbagged, and wet vacuumed the water out. The carpet was peeled back again and dried out over the next several days. The wall had already been stripped down to the foundation (mold remediation). From there on out, it was just a matter of building back - sealing, insulating, framing, drywalling, painting, installing new window coverings, restretching the carpet. And ordering in new furniture to accommodate the room that had shrunk a few inches due to the layers of the new wall. Oh, and putting in a new design wall to replace the old one that had gotten yukky after years of use and weeks of construction dust! 

Above you can see the new west wall, blinds, and the three Hemnes bookcases. I had two of those bookcases before, but they were on opposite sides of the window. With the smaller dimensions, the bookcase formerly on the left had to be moved over to the right. This necessitated getting rid of our old oak bookcase, which I moved into my “studio annex” (the downstairs bedroom). It replaced an old bookcase held together with duct tape, which is now out in the garage holding stuff. 

The third Hemnes bookcase was delivered from IKEA on Thursday. THAT was a story in itself. I ordered it online last Friday the 24th. I got an email on Saturday that said it would be delivered on Wednesday the 28th. On Monday I got a text message that said it “could not be delivered” and to call Customer Service. What did that mean?  I called the number and got a recording to visit the website. When I went to the website to check the order status, the page was down. On Tuesday night I got a text message that said it would be delivered between 9am-9pm on Tuesday. What?!? That time frame was already past! Then immediately afterward I got a text saying that the “Monday delivery had failed”.  The next morning (Wednesday) I filed an inquiry with the transport company saying I had checked our security camera footage and no delivery attempt had been made at our premises, and when could we expect delivery? They replied that evening by email that it would be rescheduled with us as soon as it returned to the warehouse. The next morning, Thursday, there was a knock on the door, and they delivered our bookcase unannounced. And that, my friends, is the cluster-Foxtrot (you know what I mean) that is the IKEA delivery service. 

So here is the view looking from my sewing station toward the design board on the north (another scrappy quilt in progress). You will also see that I have an eight-cube credenza-type storage unit upon which I’ve set my ironing board.

Originally we were going to have the cube unit raised up on 3” bed risers. But the risers arrived from Amazon broken, so I returned them. Cousin Kim and I are both short, so we decided that this height (about 32”) was good for us without risers. I have a piece of batting under the ironing board to keep it from scratching the surface of the unit. Although it looks a tad tacky, at least this way I can remove the ironing board if I need the small end to iron sleeves or something. And the unit can always be repurposed for something else down the road.

The credenza unit houses my backing fabrics (large cuts), my flamingo bag of multi-colored scraps, African fabrics and some WIPs.

The view below is from the east wall looking west. I moved two small plastic storage units into the left corner to house neutral scraps, and completed blocks awaiting assembly into tops.

The final picture, below, is our four-table set-up that can easily handle 4 quilters. The electrical cord comes down to the center area from the lights above and allows lots of things to be plugged into the power strip without us worrying about tripping over cords on the floor. And we can clear the tables easily (two machines, small personal iron and cutting mats) to use the surface for basting quilts. The door at the very right goes outside and the door in the back by the large painting (my son Shane did that in high school) is a bathroom. 

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And finally - the actual sewing I did this week! I finished basting two quilts and quilted two others. The first finish was this sampler quilt. The blocks were started in a class I took at a local quilt shop in 2019-2020 that was aborted because of Covid. I finished the remaining blocks this year as certain colors came up in the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I sewed the flimsy and basted it to use for a quilting demonstration for newbies at our last Quilts for Kids workshop.

So, if you were to closely inspect the quilting (and I doubt you can see from these pictures), there is some basic stippling, some loopy designs and a hook-swirl flower on the quilt. It’s going back to Quilts for Kids, so they’ll understand the odd variations! The sampler finished at 44x58”.

The backing is a cute white-based confetti print that I had on hand. 

The second finish was the orange string quilt whose flimsy I showed last week. I’ve named it  Orange Creamsicle Strings. It measures 42x48” and was quilted with a basic stipple.

I had to add a strip down the back to make the backing wide enough. Excuse all the waviness in these pictures - the grass (at least it’s still green!) isn’t the flattest surface. But I figured I’d take advantage of the outdoors while I can!

There was more sewing too; I added borders to my Framed Pinwheel quilt, and sewed up two more scrappy flimsies. I hope to have those, as well as my Positivity quilt, finished by next weekend. I can dream, right? 

Linking up to Scrappy Saturday. 

September Sendoff

Bruce’s brother Marv (one of his three brothers) has been visiting us from Arizona for a couple weeks. As I write this on Saturday morning, he is on his way back home. But we had to have a family gathering before he left so everyone could see him since it’s been 8 years or more. Last night was the party night at our house. It was a lot of work, but boy was it a lot of fun! 

There ended up being 16 of us, with 3 in the under-12 age range. We had pizza (three kinds), tossed  green salad, a fruit salad, cookies and a great lemon zucchini bread. The kids had a blast picking their allotment of pumpkins (limit 3 each), onions (limit one each), and grapes (limit one small brown paper bag each). I had already picked tomatoes to pawn off on any willing takers. We sat out on the patio until past dark (the patio has lights and a fan). What a wonderful, wacky and fun group the family is! Even cleanup was a snap with several of us (women and men) pitching in.  

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In my sewing studio, the carpet people arrived right on schedule Monday morning to trim and re-stretch and lay the carpet. As soon as they were done, I shampooed the carpet, and when it dried it looked as good as new! We began moving in the tables and shelving units on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Wednesday I went to Home Depot and got panels of insulation foam (like styrofoam). I used a staple gun to cover the panels with white flannel. 

The insulation panels I used came in a six-pack of 3/4” boards measuring 14x48” for $10.60.  Odd dimensions, but that is probably some standard building measurement for the space between studs. I had to run to JoAnn’s to get more flannel, but I had it all done by Thursday except where I ran short. 

I’ll have to go get one more insulation board to finish up. Later this morning our contractor and family member Jeff is coming to hang the blinds for us. Tasks like that are a bit problematic for a numbskull (me) and a one-armed man (Bruce). My final bookcase - a Hemnes bookcase from IKEA - will be delivered on Wednesday. The horizontal storage unit I wanted from IKEA isn’t available *anywhere* at present, but there is a similar one in stock at our local Target. I’m picking that up later this afternoon. The 3” bed risers for it will also be arriving on Wednesday. Then all I have to do is find a board to pad and cover for use as an ironing surface on top. With a little luck, I can get it all done this week and finish moving in my fabric. As soon as it’s all complete, I’ll give you a tour! 

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But I do have all my sewing tables set up again, and Cousin Kim and I had fun sewing in the “new” studio last Wednesday for a bit. Here are the blocks I was able to churn out this week for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge’s orange September:

I started off with eight framed four-patches, above. I’d been sewing some regular 4P’s here and there earlier in the year, but this week decided to try them out with dark and light frames around them. Much better, and a great scrap buster! These framed 4P’s will be one of my RSC blocks moving forward into 2022.  And then I tackled my crumbs and got 12 6.5” (unfinished size) blocks.

On Monday, I’m planning a marathon basting session to get at least four quilts basted. My goal is to get that many finished up by the end of September. I feel as though I’m finally emerging from a long “tunnel” of remodeling, garden chores, and family guests/obligations. Not that I would change any of it; it’s just that I’m so ready for a rest and some serious sewing time! Life is good. Have a wonderful week, friends.

Tomatoes, Onions, Squash and Orange String Quilt Blocks

Actually, I don’t need to write a blog post today, because the title pretty much sums up my week. OK, OK, it’s not everything that happened, but it’s not far off. There were also friend visits, family visits, and we’re going out to eat outdoors again this evening with family. I’ll be attending another Quilts for Kids workshop today (masked and socially distanced). I’ve been asked to be prepared to demonstrate quilting with a domestic sawing machine if any newbies join us, but other than that I’ll probably just work on strings. 

The great news here at Chez Kizerian is that the carpet installers will be here at 8:00 a.m. sharp on Monday to trim and re-stretch the carpet in my studio. YAY! Then we can shampoo the carpet and move back my furniture and sewing stuff and finally put the storms and flooding of Summer ‘21 behind us. We’ll have to hang the wood blinds and shop for storage pieces, but at least I’ll have my Stuff back where I can see it and get to it!

This was The Week of Strings. Orange is a color that I love and use a lot in my quilting. It’s also a great gender neutral color and I get a lot of donation scraps to work with from the Quilts for Kids members. So I decided I would make one orange string quilt to use up a bucketful of strings and strips. I sewed 56 blocks (6 ½” unfinished) for a 7x8 layout that will measure 42x48” when finished. 

The center strip of each block is an off-white strip that I cut from a piece of yardage. It lends (or will lend when it’s all sewn up) a subtle lattice design to break up the orangeness. I couldn’t fit them all up on the exposed portion of the design board, so the remaining blocks are pinned up in clumps on the left. But you get the idea. The design board will be re-covered with fresh new flannel probably on Wednesday when Cousin Kim comes to sew. 

Then I sewed up 16  5.5” waffle blocks, which in turn were combined into four larger blocks of four each.This completes all the blocks I need for this Rainbow Scrap Challenge (RSC) quilt. Although next month’s color will be lime green, I don’t need any more green blocks, so I can assemble this quilt  sometime over the next 2-3 months.

But that’s wasn’t all. I also stitched up these “chips” blocks (4.5” unfinished), which I am SO not crazy about. These 17 blocks bring my total to 180, which is thankfully all I need. 

I don’t have a setting plan for these yet, but they’re now in the stack of RSC blocks to be finished into quilts, along with the waffle blocks and the kitty blocks from last week. 

Kat of Kat and Cat Quilts has called out this block and these colors for the September-October block drive  for Covered in Love.  So since I have lots of orange scraps, I made four 12” blocks (finished size). They will be sent off to Kat this coming week.

I still have some four patches and crumb blocks to work on, to say nothing of assembling the orange string quilt and another orange-and-yellow quilt from scraps and orphan blocks. Once the studio is up and functional again, it will be pedal to the metal to finish up as many quilts (and use as many scraps as possible) until the end of the year.  To that end, I’ll be joining Devoted Quilter on Instagram for her WIPS-B-GONE 100-day challenge.  (WIP = works in progress). I’m going to shoot for 20 finishes in the 100 days between September 23 and the end of the year. Wish me luck!

That about wraps it up for now. This coming week will be another busy and exciting one here. I hope yours is a great one too!

I’m linking to Scrappy Saturday.

Sewing Time!

Oh, it’s been so good to sit down several times this week and just SEW!  Truly, it’s my happy place. If I need to de-stress or just REST from the garden, housework, errands, etc, , I head to my studio. Nothing has happened on that front for the last week. Apparently the person who schedules the carpet installers is on vacation this week, so my calls and even a personal visit to the store have yielded nothing. Apparently the Home Depot carpet world world just stops when Lara is not in. I’m fuming, for all the good it will do. But my stamina is not a thing to be trifled with, so I will be back on the phone and/or in the store come Monday. I want the carpet trimmed and re-stretched so I can get my studio back!!

So while I can’t baste and quilt quilts, I can still sew blocks. Since August is orange for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge, I whipped out and organized my overflowing orange scrap bucket and got to work. I’m linking up to the weekly Scrappy Saturday post where we all share our progress.  First up was the mama cat and her five kittens.

This is the ninth and final litter for this quilt. Yay! I can begin sewing blocks/litters together and then sash them. I have the design all set, so at least I’ll have a flimsy soon. It’ll be added to the pile of flimsies that need to be basted and quilted whenever, well, you know….

Next, I sewed four spring star (also called ribbon star) blocks. I love these blocks so much!

That block on the bottom left looks a bit off kilter, but I think it’s just the skewed directionality of the print. The measurements are actually fine. Oh, and that block’s star points are just covered up by the block on top of it. Regardless, it’s not getting ripped out and re-sewn. All I have left is one more light green block to do, which will happen in October, then the stars will be ready to be sewn into a flimsy. 

Yesterday I sewed up eight orange Split Nine Patch blocks. These are the final blocks for this RSC quilt. These blocks were sewn from 2020-2021, and now total 120. 

These blocks are so versatile and there are many ways to arrange them to yield different patterns. But until I have my design board back, I won’t even attempt to come up with a pattern yet. Hopefully, I can attack this one in October!

On our last trip to IKEA, I bought this cute folk-artsy pillow as well as the gold pillow case behind it. Then last Wednesday, Cousin Kim and I went to JoAnn’s and I got a pillow form for the gold pillow casing and some white flannel for the design board.  Anyway, here is Alfie “modeling” the new cushions. He very much approves of the colors! 

Both Darla and Alfie had their annual wellness visit (and booster shots) at the vet this week. They did NOT enjoy being tricked into their travel carrier and they complained all the way there. But they were good as gold during the exams and the ride home, and they didn’t even seem to hold a grudge that evening. Maybe after eight years they’re finally beginning to understand that the horrible annual trip where their temperatures are taken in the most undignified manner never really hurts them.

Bruce’s brother Marv arrived for a visit last night. I thought he was staying for a week, but I guess it’s for three weeks. It’s been almost ten years since he’s visited us here, although we see him every time we visit Arizona in February. I may have to break down and do some cooking! (Wink)

Laborious Labor Day

It’s been well over a week since I’ve blogged, and while there’s been a lot happening around here, I’m pretty sure it’s only blog-worthy in summary. I’ll catch you up with some pictures and basics. As for me, I’m so glad that fall is beginning to make itself known and felt. It’s my favorite time of year!

******* The Garden ******

It’s keeping me busy. And now that the extreme heat of summer is past, even Bruce’s garden interest is once again revived. That’s good because I need him to annihilate chop down trim the weeds between the garden beds so I can harvest veggies without tripping or otherwise being dragged under by the unruly growth. We have lots of tomatoes and onions that I’ve been processing. For the grandkids and neighbor kids we have Jack-be-little pumpkins and bunches of grapes to pick on the grape arbor. Surprisingly (or maybe not), they all seem to love picking and eating the cherry tomatoes too. 

Our green beans and Armenian cucumbers were plentiful enough for us to eat and still have extras to share. The giant sunflowers bloomed magnificently. When their heads drooped, I cut them off (oh the humanity!) and set them out for the birds. And finally, this year we’ve been able to answer the burning question, “How much is too much spaghetti squash to plant?” The answer is 12 plants. Or maybe eleven, because one of them turned out to be a gourd plant. Gourds are inedible, but great for fall decorating! Don’t ask me how that happened, because we only buy seeds from nurseries. Anyway, we have enough spaghetti squash to last us all winter, plus we’ve been sharing with friends and neighbors and family and …you get the idea. Think zucchini. 

****** The Studio Remodel ******

How’s “studio remodel” for a positive outlook? Sounds better than “basement flood repair and recovery”. Well, it was no big surprise that our homeowners insurance didn’t cover one bit of the damage repair. Rainwater (or even sprinkler water) is like flooding, and unless you specifically have such coverage, fahgetaboutit. Good thing we didn’t wait on them; we got the insurance decision yesterday, the same day that the repairs were completed by our contractor and paid for by us. 

This is what the room looks like for now - a mess as we wait for the carpet guys to come back and re-stretch and trim the carpet. I can then use my new carpet cleaner (not the vacuum pictured) to shampoo the carpet.

The extra water-proofing and insulation ended up bringing the wall in a couple inches. That means I have less floor space in my studio - and it was a tight squeeze in some corners before. We were planning to get shutters for the window, but they mount to a window surround that would take up additional inches on the wall that would prevent a bookcase (for folded fabric) to be placed. So we have wide-slat wood (composite) blinds that will mount inside the window casing instead. We will install those this week.  Finally, I have new white flannel for the design board which has gotten filthy between years of use and all the construction mayhem.

Anyway, the smaller floor space means that one of my IKEA Billy bookcases won’t fit in its previous space, to the left of the window. And I hate that old oak bookcase I have, but desperately need the storage. So the plan is that once everything (window coverings, carpet) is installed and cleaned, we’ll move back what we can and then begin the process of assessing which storage pieces that I need and that will fit. But at least while that’s going on, I’ll be able to get back to basting and quilting again!

****** Sewing ******

I’ll show all my September orange Rainbow Scrap Challenge sewing on Saturday when I link up to Scrappy Saturday. But in the meantime, I’ve been sewing string blocks. I gave up counting somewhere near 100. Plus I already had that many on hand. I need to do a full count, but this is what they look like for now, sorted out by color on top of my treadle machine that is tucked safely out of harm’s way for now.

****** Family and Cats ******

Tomorrow we take Alfie and Darla to the vet for their annual physical and booster shots. Our fingers are crossed that they don’t need any dental work. 

My daughter Megan, who lives in Seattle, has gone back to school (nursing), so is just working part-time in a bank. They mask up and are separated from the public by a plexiglass screen. She is fully vaccinated, yet recently contracted Covid. It’s a mild(ish) case and she is already feeling better. She is out for two weeks or until she tests negative. And they’re still paying her, so she feels very fortunate. 

Bruce’s brother Marv is driving up from Arizona. He’ll be staying with us for a week while he visits friends and attends his 60th high school reunion. If his schedule allows, we’ll be having a family gathering  so everyone can spend some time together. 

So that pretty much catches us up. I’ll be back here on Saturday!